Another museum weekend; another batch of books procured from museum gift shops. I have a problem, maybe.

After visiting several historical sights in Lexington this Saturday, Mom and I popped over to Concord to check out Orchard House, where  Louisa May Alcott and her family lived for twenty years. In addition to being shamed from beyond the grave for my own lack of creative output, the time at Orchard House reminded me that, while I've read most of Alcott's books for children, the only bit of her adult writing that I've read is  A Long Fatal Love Chase, about a woman who marries the devil. (It's an excellent book.) So I picked up a copy of  Hospital Sketches, which she'd written during her short and ill-fated time serving as a nurse in the Civil War, and I read it that afternoon. (It's very short.)

The first thing I really liked about my copy of Hospital Sketches is that it seems to be a facsimile edition of a very early printing, with the blocky old-fashioned text of a printing press and some slightly batty spacing and punctuation. These things amuse me much more than they probably ought.

The second thing I really liked about the book is that, thought it is mostly autobiographical and written in the first person, Alcott gives the viewpoint character's name as "Tribulation Periwinkle," which about the most perfect parody old-school New England name you can come up with. She is variously referred to by other characters as "Old Trib," "Nurse Trib," "Nurse P.," and other charming variants on the charming pseudonym.

Alcott's skill with observational humor, and especially her comic accounts of the absurdities and small frustrations of getting anything done properly in this mad old world, means that Hospital Sketches is a very comic little book in tone, although the subject matter is mostly about young people dying of horrible wounds as Nurse Trib overworks herself right into a bout of typhoid pneumonia. The first sketch details her travels down to DC from Massachusetts, and it contains all the things you want in a comic travelogue, such as amusingly mean descriptions of her fellow-travelers, some morbid fantasizing about all the ways traveling on public transit can go horribly wrong, and at least one adventure in getting embarrassingly lost. This last article takes place when she's trying to figure out how to get her free ticket to get from Boston to DC and involves her running around all over downtown Boston, which I personally enjoyed reading about as a resident of that badly planned and opaquely regulated little city.

The rest of the sketches are about her time at a facility she calls Hurly-burly House or the Hurly-burly Hotel, a chaotic, badly managed place where it seems like a miracle anyone actually got better at, especially with medicine being what it was in the 1860s. There's a lot of religious and patriotic beatification of various soldiers who die dreadfully, which could easily have been corny, especially considering the tone of arch social satire in so much of the rest of the book, but which do come off as quite touching, probably because Alcott's very earnest about what a tragic waste of human life it is to send a bunch of young people off to get blown up, no matter how glorious or necessary the cause.

The cause for the Union army in the case of the Civil War was certainly about as necessary as it gets, being rivaled in moral high ground only by the fight against the Nazis in World War II; however, the 1860s were still the 1860s, and it shows. The Alcott family were diehard abolitionists, and not in the "people ought to be as nice to their slaves as they are to their pets" way (honestly, some anti-slavery literature is mind-boggling regressive). But all the terms for people of color that were the polite terms back in 1860 are not the polite terms anymore (the impolite terms are still impolite, only even more so), and the bits where Trib Models Interacting With Black People Nicely For The Benefit Of Readers are well-intentioned but really quite cringey from the vantage point of 150 years later. Fortunately, these bits are short, since the book is short and so all the bits are short.

The last sketch (except for a postscript) is an account of Nurse Periwinkle coming down with typhoid pneumonia; this bit is really the opposite of dated, and will ring true to the experience of anyone who has fallen deliriously sick, especially anyone who has fallen deliriously sick in the middle of a work shift. This last sketch also provides a more detailed account of the nurses' quarters, which makes living in a freshman dorm sound clean and orderly.

All in all, it's as delightful a look into the hell of Civil War-era medical care as you're going to find, and it's about as readable as contemporary accounts of the subject are going to be, so I definitely recommend it to anyone else who's interested in Alcott, even if you're mostly familiar with her as a children's writer.

Originally posted at The misadventures of Tribulation Periwinkle.

After seeing the PBS American Masters presentation on Louisa May Alcott, I downloaded Hospital Sketches on my Kindle. I'd read all the usual LMA books - Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, etc. but hadn't ever read this one. It's a thinly-disguised fictional account of LMA's nursing experiences in a Washington, DC Civil War hospital. Alcott's writing style is all Jo - earnest, engaging, enthusiastic, a bit preachy, and very detailed. I enjoyed it!

This short volume was once a series in the Commonwealth newspaper. The author is far more known for her books Little Women and others, but few, including me didn’t know she was a Civil War nurse. I recently picked this up on a visit to Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania NMP in VA. Although they were originally hastily written letters to her family, they were shared in the Commonwealth serving to honor the brave women who served as nurses and a glimpse into life during the war. At times, though a small volume, it was a bit verbose. It felt like Miss Alcott was at other times “trying to hard” to tell a good tale. It was interesting to see this side of the Civil War.

Many people don't know about this book, since the one and only Ms. Louisa May Alcott is known more for Little Womenand its sequel Little Men, but for history buffs, of the Civil War especially, this is a must read.

Being a woman permitted to help your fellow beings as a money earning career option when you weren't allowed to before is quite an excitable choice to make. Throughout this book I was told some sad and happy tales of being a Union hospital nurse during the war that divided families, friends, business associates, etc. At times I found this book a bit to wordy, which made it longer than I would have liked it. Since these are memories from different people it makes sense and even respectable to keep them as lengthy to respect the sacrifices being made by men and women at this time. Ms. Alcott's experiences during her own time as a Union nurse helps to give this book a very realistic feel. It was hard to read at times but it was worth it in the end.

Good companion in learning more about the Civil War. I expected it to be somber but it is mostly quite light, with a humorous tone. There is one moving passage in particular about the death of solider and it is interesting to read the thoughts and opinions of an abolitionist on the African Americans she encounters.

I could NOT get into this at all. I think it may have been the way it was written, but I had zero interest from start to finish. While it was interesting to get a glimpse into how Civil War hospitals were run, as well as how the women who worked in them were treated, I found the entire book dreary and incredibly dull.

I received this for my birthday as I am a fan of Louisa May Alcott and have read at least 7 of her novels. I was curious to read this as it was the first book she published.

This book is based on her own experiences as a nurse during the civil war and although it held my interest you can tell she is finding her voice. I felt moved when she wrote about the death of one of her patients and when she stood up for black people. I found the postscript from her better written and more intriguing too.

An insight in to the conditions of being a nurse in the 19th century with some dry humour and some emotional moments.

Such an excellent book! I think it’s a necessary read — it depicts the Civil War from a nurse’s perspective, which Louisa May Alcott experienced herself. Her humor was sarcastic and shined through, yet her portrayals of the many horrible things soldiers endure was just as prevalent. Definitely recommend! Can’t believe I’ve never heard of this novel before.

This is a great little book for anyone with an interest in the history of medicine. Impressively, even in her short time nursing she had insights into the issues of bedside manner that continue to plague doctors today. I'd also recommend it to fans of Louisa May Alcott. The "Hospital Sketches" are an opportunity to see a young woman mature over the course of a set of life-changing events.

It's hard to believe this is one of Louisa May Alcott's earliest published works. Over the course of just a few chapters, she had me both laughing out loud at her inimitable humor and sobbing outright at the pathos of her descriptions. The deathbed scene of a man we hadn't met until we knew he was dying affected me as much as those of any of her better-known and loved characters and had me berating her through my tears for breaking down my guard with her hilarious accounts of the preparations for and accomplishment of her journey.

Content: a few instances of profanity from the soldiers (although most of it is hinted, not written); some attitudes toward black people that might be considered racist by today's standards, although far ahead of much of the thought of the time.

This short, very readable book gives insight into nursing during the Civil War. Since the author is literary, the book too is literary. She describes all aspects of her experience: her decision, preparation, reactions, the journey, a comparison of two different hospitals, the first few days, the patients, the staff, handling death, Sundays, the people of DC, their statues, race relations, the dawn of Emancipation, doctors, and her own illness which required her to leave. Technically, it is fiction but, as she nursed during the war and Ms. Periwinkle bears a striking resemblance to Louisa, it has a historical feel to it.

I definitely think this would work as a take-home book for advanced students and in class book for others.

This was not what I expected but I enjoyed it a great deal. It is unfortunately too short (I knew Ms. Alcott went home after contracting Typhoid Fever, I didn't realize she became ill so quickly after her arrival). Considering she went to a new city, to learn a new job, on the eve of Fredericksburg, and remained less than 2 months, I find it rather impressive that she was able to capture what she did in her letters. I loved that the colloquial style was kept for the book. It's rough and informal but that provides a stronger feeling of "being there." It reminded at times of reading a blog.

The only books of hers I've read are the ones from the Little Women series. I really got a kick out of feeling like I was reading something written by Jo March as opposed to (based on my experience) Ms. Alcott. Enough where I'll probably tackle her journals at some point.